We had a brilliant trip to Nanyuki. The team was excited about the event, especially with it being a beautiful sunny morning.

After a brief warm-up and tactical team talk we were ready to go. The event started off with U9 girls, with Eber having a particularly strong run,  finishing among the first of the Braeburn girls, with Alana 6th and Quinn 9th. Ironically Quinn lost to the Braeburn Nanyuki girl she helped when she had a stitch.

In the U9 boys Cruz and Ivai came 12th and 13th while in the U11 girls Angel was 12th. Unfortunately Lerato, Gaia and Nerice got lost for a few minutes before finding their way back on to the course and they finished very close together. We didn’t have any boys in the U11 age group.

Our U13 Girls were impressive, stuck to the plan and finished: Katanu 2nd, Amani 3rd, Kiana 5th and Sheryl 6th. Their performances resulted in 1st place in the girls U13 category. In the U13 boys Bryne was 2nd, narrowly losing after leading most of the way; Jacob came 5th.

Overall Braeburn School came 2nd, an impressive team result, particularly considering we had no runners to score top points in the U11 boys. Excellent job everyone!

The annual IAPS cross-country event took place on Saturday, 5th May at St. Andrew's School in a sunny Turi. Our runners ran with speed, determination and endurance over distances of 3km for the under 9s and U11 girls, 4.75km for the U11 boys and U13 girls and 5.1km for the U13 boys.

Whilst cross-country running is often seen as an individual event, it is also very much a team one with points being earned by the first 4 runners of each school to go towards age group and overall results. We were very proud of all those who competed; they showed great heart and gave everything in a hilly course, at altitude. It was fantastic to see the support that the team gave to each other to encourage them to the finish line at the end of a gruelling run.

Our U9 girls, pictured above, emerged as winners of their age group, with the U11 boys and the U13 girls each placing 3rd. Lara Bailey and Nhial Srinivasan put in great performances to take bronze in their races, while Tyson Kitchens ran superbly to take gold in the U13 race, completing the 5.1km in an excellent 21:00 minutes, only 26 seconds off the course record. Had he not been so comfortably ahead of the next runners he may even have been able to set a new record. When he reached the finish line, he looked ready to go again. 

The event saw a high standard of running from all the participating schools and all the athletes who took part can be proud of their efforts and achievements. Overall, Braeburn came 5th, narrowly missing out on 4th. 

Congratulations and a big well done to all of our runners and thanks to the PE staff who have worked so well to prepare them.

We had a great Braeburn gala on Saturday with swimmers from 7 of the 9 Braeburn schools (Arusha, Braeside, Garden Estate, Imani, Kisumu, Nanyuki, and Braeburn School) taking to the water - the sun even shone (and we have the photo to prove it, although it would be stretching things to say it was typical of the weather conditions on the day - we could almost have held it on the rugby pitch there was so much standing water on it).

Swimmers from all the schools did themselves and their schools proud as the Braeburn family came together for a sporting festival, followed by lunch in the dining hall. Our swimmers came away from the gala with 13 gold medals, 17 silver medals and 10 bronze medals.

Players from Peponi House, Kenton College, Hillcrest, The Banda and Braeburn School gathered on an overcast Saturday morning to compete in the annual IAPS Chess Tournament, hosted in the High School hall at Braeburn.

Chess is a superb activity for children to pursue, with many benefits attributed to playing it, including:

• Development of concentration, patience and self-discipline
• Logical thinking, planning, problem-solving, categorising information and pattern recognition
• Improves visual memory and spatial-reasoning ability

Teams of 2 pupils in each of the Under 9, Under 11 and Under 13 age categories pitted their strategic minds against each other to apply their skills, experience and problem-solving. Some schools brought additional chess players who were invited to enjoy the opportunity of playing pupils from outside their schools, but who did not participate in the overall competition.

Engrossing games saw clever play from all the participants, in at times tense games, within an atmosphere of fair play and good sportsmanship.

All the players can be proud of their performances on the day. Gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded in each age category and Braeburn School emerged as the overall IAPS Chess Tournament champions for 2018.

Huge congratulations to our U9s, Ben and Kristian, our U11s, Queen and Mudit, and to our U13s, Kieran and Vishrut. They put in strong individual performances to contribute to the team's overall success.

Thank you to Mr Reydon, the chess tutor at Braeburn, and to the Kenya Chess Association for their valuable support of the event.

Here at EYFS we have been busy! It sure has rained a lot, but we popped on our puddle suits and gumboots and enjoyed a splash outside. In class we have written some thank you cards to the lovely people who help us, practiced addition of 2 digit numbers, role played in our Gruffalo Cafe, worked on our library display and challenged ourselves to build with the construction toys.